[ Back to the Table of Contents ]
Browse Thousands of USGS Maps Online at the USGS Store
[Text provided by USGS.]
The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) announces the release of the USGS Store, its online map catalog, January 1, 2004. The USGS Store will provide online ordering access to all published products distributed by the USGS. The catalog is online at <http://store.usgs.gov>.
The new USGS Store is a full online catalog of products that initially presents thumbnail images of all 7.5-minute topographic maps along with larger images of other selected maps. Many of the products will also have detailed descriptions available. All USGS published products (maps, books, general interest publications, etc.) will be available from the store. In addition to USGS products, the Catalog carries the products of other agencies that are available from the USGS: for example, US Forest Service maps of National Forests, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) maps of Vietnam and other countries, historic maps from the Library of Congress, and land-management maps from the US Bureau of Land Management.
This functionality provides a new method to communicate recent news and product advertisements of USGS published products. Ordering options enable users to charge to an account, a project number, or a credit card. The site also enables customers to check their order status and receive email confirmations.
The USGS Store will replace Earth Explorer and MapFinder for the searching and ordering of maps. A notice and a link to the USGS Store will be posted on both sites to inform users of the change in map ordering. The products can also be ordered from a network of authorized USGS retailers. A listing of retailers, by State, is available on the Store and also at: <http://mapping.usgs.gov/www/partners/bpmain.html>. For more information about the USGS and the products it offers, call 303-202-4200, or 1-888-ASK-USGS.
[ Back to the Table of Contents ]
Depository Library Council's Advice to the Public Printer, January 22, 2004
At the Depository Library Council Meeting in October 2003, Public Printer Bruce R. James challenged the Depository Library Council (DLC) to provide advice on three key issues integral to the envisioning process Mr. James instituted upon his assumption of office in December 2002. Mr. James specifically highlighted these three topics for Council input:
- What constitutes a version of information and how will it be authenticated?
- How should GPO store information, especially in a digital form? Related to that, what should GPO do to ensure permanent public access to the Legacy Collections that have been developed over the course of government printing?
- What types of revenue generation might GPO engage in to further enhance, improve, and develop new technologies that will ensure GPO's future in the electronic milieu?
Over the course of the past several weeks, DLC has engaged in spirited debate over these issues. Additionally, Council sought feedback from the depository library community, library associations, and information specialists outside the purview of the depository library program. Much of this feedback is incorporated into our responses.
Version/Authenticity Control
Context and Problem:
A characteristic of the digital information environment is the ease with which electronic content may be changed. Two major issues that ensue from this malleability of digital information are version and authenticity control. With respect to version control, multiple versions of information are often publicly available on multiple Web sites, which can be confusing and sometimes damaging to information users who are not aware of the version status of the material they are using. With respect to authenticity, multiple copies of government information available on the Web (and on other digital media) allege to be the same version when, in fact, some are authentic "official" versions and others are unauthentic copies. Again, this situation leads to confusion and can be damaging to end-users.
The problems associated with verifying the version and authenticity of digital information products are particularly critical in the genre of government information. Authenticity implies that the internal integrity, origins, and completeness of digital products are verifiable. Users of digital government information must be able to verify the authenticity of digital products. This is especially true for information products having primary legal authority, such as statutes, regulations, opinions, decisions, and guidelines, as well as other categories such as health advisory bulletins and Census reports, the authenticity of which users will expect to be able to verify. Similarly, users of public data files need to be aware of the date, scope, content and latest modifications of datasets. Historians need to be able to verify versions of documents that have evolved over time.
Council urges GPO to institute practical steps to improve user awareness of the version status and authenticity of government information they are accessing, such as through adherence to best practices and, where available, standards that can identify versions and the authenticity of government information resources. The standards-setting process should involve the wide array of stakeholders who utilize government information and should begin immediately. GPO, as the agency responsible for coordinating access to and dissemination of a substantial volume of digital federal government information, should be among the lead agencies in inter-agency efforts to develop the standards. As a Congressional agency, GPO should take the lead on these issues as they pertain to congressional information.
Further, Council recommends that a method of authentication should be developed and implemented as soon as possible that is widely recognized, flexible, open (e.g., open source and "General Public License," [
http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html
]) and portable-over-time. Tools for verifying authenticity should be made freely available to federal depository libraries and the public. GPO should acknowledge that all technological means of authentication are subject to human and machine error, and intentional disruption or fabrication. GPO should, therefore, develop polices that reflect secure, long-term methods of ensuring authentic documents in a widespread dissemination and distribution environment such as the FDLP.
Council commends GPO for the vision it has shown regarding the version issue, and for its preliminary exploration of Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) as a mechanism for authentication. Council encourages GPO to continue its efforts to move ahead to adopt strategies for resolving version and authenticity issues in the near-term as standards are developed. GPO should explore multiple approaches to the long-term assurance that government information is authentic, including, but not limited to, dark archives on both government and non-government sites, and widespread distribution of authentic products to the FDLP.
Version Categories and Challenges:
The following list is a core set of categories of government publishing and associated versioning challenges. Guidelines for retention may vary by category. This is intended neither as a comprehensive nor prioritized list, but rather to be illustrative of some of the challenges that will be faced by those attempting to develop best practices and standards in this area:
Monographic Materials
Documents intended as a final product. Are copies of each revised or corrected version needed? Have users already referenced the earlier versions? Policy decisions or research might have been based on earlier versions. Is there a difference for retention between revised and corrected?
Legislative and Regulatory Documents
Draft vs. final (interim)
Daily and weekly version (interim) – need to ensure that all data is included in annual cumulation rather than aggregated monthly or quarterly
Errata (e.g., hearings)
Process Documents
Each version of the document has value, e.g., versions of bills.
Drafts
How to distinguish which are replaced by final version and which remain valuable as record of the process.
Datasets
Datafiles where information is updated and corrected.
Example: Table with ten years of historic and actual figures and five years of forecast or estimated figures. If estimates are replaced with the actual as time passes, researchers need mechanism for obtaining the original estimates to evaluate accuracy of forecasting methodology.
Date of last update
Freeze on regular basis
Errata
Serials
Date of issue
Revised or original version
Errata
Databases
Freeze on regular basis
Errata
Authentication Challenges and Strategies:
The following list includes a core set of categories of government information authentication challenges with suggested mechanisms that might address these challenges. Many of the concepts in this section have been culled from two key resources:
Challenge:
Verify the provenance of government information.
Verify the originality (or faithfulness to the original).
Verify the publication is uncorrupted.
Mechanisms:
Mark (watermark) the original publication with document identifiers.
Register document identifiers.
Maintain "collections of record" which contain original or verified copies.
Register "key" data about documents which, "when hashed, or otherwise calculated in a publicly available way, should match that of the document in hand…"
Structure metadata to carry document authentication declarations or proofs.
Digital Information Storage and Legacy Collections
Description of a Legacy Collection
The goal of the FDLP has been one of assurance of permanent public access with respect to historical and current information as published by federal government agencies. This authority has been codified in 44 U.S.C. Chapter 19. The FLDP Legacy Collection now includes all government information products, regardless of form or format, which are of public interest, provide educational value (with the exception of material that is produced strictly for administrative or operations purposes), or are classified for reasons of national security, or the use of which is constrained by privacy considerations.
Further, government information in electronic form is now part of the scope of the FDLP Electronic Collection. This Collection is composed of four major components:
- Core legislative and regulatory materials such as the Congressional Record, Federal Register and other materials that are found on GPO Access.
- Internet products that have been published or made generally available by GPO.
- Internet products made available by the originating federal agency and which GPO has identified and provided links to the information content.
- Products that are distributed by GPO in a tangible digital format.
Therefore the Legacy Collection shall include all tangible materials distributed to the Federal Depositories Libraries throughout the life of the Program and all publicly available federal government information distributed via the Internet. These Ttangible formats should include but are not limited to all types of print on paper, micro-formats, and digital products such as floppy disks, CD ROMs, and DVDs. The singular "collection" is used to imply the universe of FDLP government information available through the program both online and in hard copy, as opposed to the plural "collections," which refers to holdings of FDLP items in individual FDLP institutions.
In its deliberations Council discussed strategies for assuring on-going access to both the tangible and Internet-based segments of the Legacy Collection. The following constitute scenarios Council believes merit further examination as plausible options for preserving the Legacy Collection. Council realizes that the models described will entail a reorganization of FDLP relationships, a reassignment of traditional FDLP responsibilities, and the adoption of a key new responsibility – the provision of permanent access to the Legacy Collection. Recent closer ties between GPO and NARA provide the opportunity to explore archival issues pertaining to FDLP materials.
Preservation of Tangible Copies:
A model for assuring ongoing access to the tangible format portion of the legacy collection would be the designation of a new tier of libraries that would acquire, preserve, and provide access to archival FDLP collections. An important assumption of this model is that the general-use copy would be digital. An electronic collection would make legacy government information widely available and save wear-and-tear on the original copies. In concert with GPO maintaining an archival collection of last resort, the new tier of archive collections may be organized along these lines:
- Regionals and selectives would maintain as many tangible copies as they deem useful for their communities. These would also be "general use" copies, still subject to the access mandates of Title 44. Preservation of these copies would be up to the holding institutions.
- GPO and the FDLP community would cooperate to establish several geographically dispersed archival FDLP collections that would be as comprehensive as possible and be preserved using archival standards. The archival collections would be accessed only if no copy of a document were available in the general use collections. The intention of establishing multiple archival collections is to avoid potential catastrophic loss – physical or institutional -- inherent in having only a single collection. Problems in one archival collection would not undermine the whole system. Council notes that attention to potential natural or man-made disasters should be given when designating archival collection sites.
- GPO would create an archival collection of "last resort." This collection would be a non-circulating collection and would not be publicly accessible. The collection would be the most comprehensive archival collection, utilizing state-of-the-art standards. The collection would be accessed only when a copy of a document could not be found among the general-use collections or other archival collections. Materials requested from this collection would be digitized and made available through the Electronic FDLP Collection.
GPO and the depository community should investigate previous and current cooperative preservation programs and evaluate the outcomes in order to determine the optimum number of artifact copies needed. This optimum number may differ by content, format and potential use. The community also needs to investigate the number of tangible copies GPO should require from the agencies for all current and future acquisitions to assure permanent public access.
To build the comprehensive Legacy Collection, GPO should distribute its own needs list with regular updates and should closely monitor existing offers lists to acquire items being weeded from depository collections.
Digitization of Print Materials for Improved Access
Beyond preservation of the Legacy Collection, digitization provides the opportunity to improve access, usability and visibility of government information. GPO must coordinate the implementation of user-friendly searching of all digitized government information, a single gateway for access to the collection, and multi-format digitization where appropriate, such as maps and statistical information.
GPO and the community should begin prioritizing and digitizing the tangible materials in the legacy collections. These tangible materials would include print, microfiche, CDs, videos and any other tangible formats not mentioned here. Floppy discs are archived at <http://www.indiana.edu/~libgpd/mforms/floppy/floppy.html>.
There should be coordination among digitization projects in order to avoid duplication of effort and to ensure comprehensive coverage. The FDLP should lead this effort. All digitization projects should follow the same standards, perhaps those being developed as a result of the ARL prospectus. Standards for different types of materials should be considered. For example, statistical information could be done in spreadsheet or statistical package-friendly formats instead or in addition to simple images. All depository libraries should be included in the process, and the FDLP should plan for format migrations. Furthermore, GPO should establish an authentication program to validate digitization projects produced by depository libraries in accordance with the established standards.
Digitized copies should also be preserved or archived, perhaps by using a distributed file system such as LOCKSS. These preservation procedures should be applied not only to materials digitized from the tangible materials in the legacy collections but also "born- digital" materials.
Preservation microfilm copies of legacy print publications should be made if they can feasibly be created as part of the digitization process.
Council advises that a minimum of five artifact copies of originals should be retained.
Cataloging
All materials, tangible and electronic, in the Legacy Collection must be cataloged in accordance with generally accepted cataloging and metadata standards. Complete cataloging of tangible legacy collections will help establish an accurate estimate of the number of existing copies and provide the primary means of access. Materials that have not been cataloged prior to selection for digitization must be cataloged as part of the digitization process.
The GPO should identify pre-1976 catalog records for the Legacy Collection. Such records would reflect the digitized item, and should be made available to all depository libraries at no fee.
Council reaffirms the historic role of GPO as cataloger and indexer of U.S. publications (whether published by GPO or other agencies). GPO should continue to serve as metadata provider for both retrospectively digitized materials as well as prospectively for both print and web-based content.
Council's Suggested Digitization Priorities - unranked
Titles
Budget of the U.S. Government
Climatological Data & Local Climatological Data
Code of Federal Regulations (back to 1938)
Congressional Record - bound
Congressional Serial Set
Current Population Reports
Department
of State Bulletin